Archive for November, 2009

A few nights ago on Ace of Cakes, Duff and the team reproduced the Hogwarts Express train (it looked like they had the Lionel O-Gauge version as a reference.) As an owner of the Lionel Hogwarts Express train set I thought this was pretty cool. As incredible cake designers, they must have to deal with scale on a regular basis, just like model train layout designers do!

Tom Felton, Duff Goldman (The Ace of Cakes) and the Hogwarts Express Cake

I have started planning my own model train layout which when finished will be a replica of the Hogwarts Quidditich Pitch (pitch is what the field is called) with the Lionel O-Gauge Hogwarts Express train set going around it. In order to design and make my own Quidditch pitch and accoutrement, math is involved. But fear not! I am equipped with fancy tools like, the Internet!

Hogwarts Quidditch Pitch

First I need to get some measurements on the pitch, etc. Wikipedia is happy to oblige with their Quidditch entry. Here I find some of the stats I need to begin. Next I need to convert these numbers into the scale for my layout, which is the US O Scale ratio of 1/48. To help me do that I find another tool, a handy website with a Javascript scale conversion calculator.

Below you can see the table I started entering my data on:

My scale conversion table

You may have noticed the pitch is supposed to be 10 feet by 3.75 feet… this size is probably going to be prohibitive. I think I can probably get away with shrinking the size of the pitch down while keeping the rest of the items (people, stands, hoops, balls) at the proper scale.

Granted, the Wikipedia entry on Quidditch didn’t have all of the measurements I needed but this will give me a great start in laying out some of the elements on my diagram (picture, if you will, many, many sheets of graph paper taped together…I really LOVE graph paper…but more about that in another installment.)